Besides the cadets of the company, the Academy was attended by supernumeraries in the earlier days, who were permitted to study there pending vacancies. Certain students, also known as gentlemen attendants, who did not meditate joining the Army, but attended for general education, were permitted to avail themselves of the services of the Academy Masters by paying the annual sum of thirty guineas. Classics were taught as well as mathematics, at the schools in the Warren; and, in fact, Woolwich was used by these gentlemen attendants, much as West Point is used in America by students who recognize the value of the education imparted there, but do not contemplate entering the military profession. This suggests allusion to the Academy Masters in the olden time. It must be admitted that, in point of discipline and obedience to authority, the example set by the Masters to the pupils was far from beneficial. They resented military interference. They brooded over real and fancied slights. They absented themselves without permission; and their letters to the Lieutenant-Governor were not unfrequently impertinent. The case was at one time serious. But "Custodes quis custodiet ipsos?" At last a man was found to bell the cat; a man of whom we shall hear again—who was Lieutenant-Governor in 1776, before going to command the Artillery in America—James Pattison. A letter which he addressed to the Mathematical Masters on the 1st April, 1777, shows the line he adopted; and tells the whole story without any explanation being necessary. "GENTLEMEN,—I have received your letter of 27th March, and the reply I have at present to make to it is principally to correct two essential mistakes contained in the four lines which compose the letter. You say, that at my _request_, you have subjoined your opinion on the mode of education in the Academy, and desire me to present it to the Master-General in _your names_. "The case in my manner of stating it is _this_. I signified to you the Master-General's being not well pleased at the slow progress made by the Gentlemen Cadets in the Mathematics, and asked if you thought there was room for any beneficial alteration in the method of teaching in your department. Upon which you expressed great discontent at the printed rules you are prescribed to teach by, condemning them as being very defective and absurd, and mentioned several amendments you wished might be allowed to take place. I thereupon _required_, not _requested_, you to represent them to me in writing, that I might be able to lay them, if expedient, before the Master-General; _not_ meaning, as you seem to _conceive_, to be merely the porter of them in your names.